2017 Platinum. Purchased fall 2017. Heard the buzz about Amazon Echo/Alexa integration. Thought I'd give it a whirl. I have decent wrenching and IT skills, so thinking this would be a breeze, ESPECIALLY since our last vehicle (Edge) had the massive Ford Fail in MFT. This would have to be better, right? Not real impressed, in fact, if MFT was a piece of crap (and it clearly was), I'd say sync 3 is mostly just a faster piece of crap. Now I can get about 4-5 wrong responses in the time it used to take for 1 wrong response. That is a comparison of using voice recognition to find an address or POI compared to using something like a PC based Google search engine. I really don't know how the Ford team can get it so wrong, but in any event, here are a few data points from attempting the Alexa interface at what turns out to be the Ford+Alexa app. Must be running V2.2 or higher for the Ford+Alexa app to work properly. So updated the sync 3 software from 2.0 to 2.3 per the instructions found on Ford's website. I think it worked. I have to say think, because of the horrible instructions and documentation of what the update includes. Other than the screen in the vehicle that now says 2.3, how would I know it "took"? Had these folks had a stellar track record with their infotainment systems, I probably wouldn't be questioning it. Putting things like "pay no attention to the "installation is complete" message that occurs a few minutes after the install begins" does not build a ton of confidence with the procedures. If you read other forums and watch the few self shot install videos on YouTube, you can immediately tell this Wizard of Oz comment of "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" has done nothing other than inject doubt and confusion in to what should be insanely straight forward. Then they tell me it "could" take up to 60 minutes to install. From all the info I've read and watched, it seems the average install time is more like 15-20 minutes, so now we wonder if the "installation complete" message that what most of us see at the 15-20 minute point is the fake one. YGTBSM. Rewrite the code and get rid of the fake message! They also don't seem to have teams well versed in instructional or checklist writing techniques, but maybe they're just short of data when writing due to shoving software out the door with no testing? Wouldn't it be better to say something like "average installations take 15-20 minutes but in extreme cases (I don't even know what that would be?) it could take up to 60 minutes". I actually thought all this was supposed to happen automatically through WiFi, which it did not, and again, I'm quite sure I have all the switches and permissions set up correctly for that.
Short version with Alexa; have yet to get it to work. Phone is a Google Pixel 2. Everything in terms of app's, permissions, vehicle settings, etc is correct from what I can tell, but no luck. Was hoping to be able to listen to our Amazon music through this app but have already read some reviews from folks who have managed to get the Alexa app to work in their vehicles that the music piece has some pretty bad bugs/flaws. Great
I also really would like to have a hands on, voice recognition, assistant that I can ask questions. I'm not sure why, because our in house experience with the Amazon system hasn't been that great either. IMO, Alexa has less than a good IQ; Google home on the other hand, seems to be "smarter" in side by side comparisons of the same questions, but I digress. So it appears you must have 2 apps on the phone; the Ford+Alexa app for the phone to vehicle interface and then the Amazon Alexa app which is used to set up basic functions on each of your Amazon Echo devices. You don't have to have the FordPass system/app unless you want the pay for service app that will allow you to remote start your vehicle (among other things) from your phone.
Has anyone running 2.3 (or the apparent beta/unauthorized/bootleg 3.0) had any luck running the Alexa app and if so, any meaningful lessons learned?